Aquarius.
Pegasus.
Eventually, I felt my mind clear and allowed my eyes to droop closed.The minutes ticked by as I listened to the muffled music leaking out the propped door into the alley, trying to work up the courage to go back inside. It wasn’t that I was scared to see Finn. In fact, it was the opposite; I was so eager to be alone with him, it was taking every modicum of self-control I possessed not to storm back on stage and forcibly drag him to my apartment.
My eyesflew open at the unmistakable sound of the heavy metal door slamming shut with a resounding boom that shook me to my very core. Even more startling was the sudden quiet, as if the darkness had thrown a thick woolen blanket over every sound – the music, the laughter, the chatter of rowdy patrons as they bought drinks. It was all gone now, leaving me alone in the utter stillness.
And the dark.
Every trace of calm in my system had fled along with the light, and my mind was abruptly full of panicked thoughts that pinged around the inside of my mind faster than I could keep up with.
Did someone close the door, or was it the wind?
Are you an idiot? There isn’t any wind, Brooklyn.
Okay, so someone closed it.
Did they know that I’m out here?
Shit, doesanyoneknow that I’m out here?
Or, worse…is someone out herewith me?
I forced myself to stop thinking along those lines before I induced afull-blown panic attack. My eyes, unadjusted to the sudden darkness, reeled wildly as they searched for something,anything, in the pitch-black alleyway. Every muscle in my body tensed as I prepared for an attack of some kind. I took stock of the situation, my hands curled into fists and my body poised on the balls of my feet as I prepared to take off at a moment’s notice.
I had two options: either feel my way back toward the door and try to open it – which I wasn’t even sure was possible, given the fact that I hadn’t seen a doorknob on the outside – or follow along the wall I was leaning against until it led me to the street in front of Styx. The alley was probably only a hundred feet long – it would have taken me no more than a few seconds to find my way out under normal circumstances.
Now, however, with only my hands and ears to guide me, my feet strapped into a pair of Lexi’shighest heeled sandals, and fear coursing through my veins, I knew it would take me much longer to reach the street. Especially if I was bumping into dumpsters and wading through refuse the entire way.
I cursedmy own stupidity. I’d broken every rule in theGirls Who Don’t Want to Get Murdered at Collegehandbook by going outside alone and not bringing Lexi or even my cellphone with me on this asinine escapade.
I decidedmy chances of prying open the heavy door were better than attempting to navigate a garbage-filled cobblestone alley in five-inch stilettos. With my luck, I’d probably end up tripping over a hobo or falling headfirst into a dumpster.
Takinga tentative step forward into the darkness, I kept one hand planted against the wall behind me, the brick surface rough beneath my palm. Despite the faint light cast by the stars above, the alley remained too dark to make out any shapes at all. Initially, I’d been optimistic that my eyes would adjust to the shadows, but after nearly a full minute had passed with little change, my hopes had dwindled.
Without my sight, my other senses were all on high alert;I could smell the cloying stench emanating from the dumpsters and, if a mouse had scurried anywhere within a half-mile radius, I was sure I’d have heard it. So with each passing minute that the alley remained utterly quiet, I grew more confident that I was alone.
Ifelt some of the tension uncoil from my shoulders. Though I was still uneasy about the situation, I was beginning to think that the door slamming closed was the work of a jealous fangirl, rather than some kind of creeper-rapist-monster-zombie.
More assuredly, I took another step forwardinto the darkness, taking me farther from the wall at my back and leaving only the fingertips of my left hand on the bricks. I was reluctant to relinquish that final tactile connection to the world, irrationally worried that, if I did, I might find myself lost in the darkness.
The alley was relatively narrow; standing directly in the center, I thought I might be able to reach both walls with my arms extended out to either side. Anxious to reach the doorway and get back to the safety of the club, I swung my right hand out into the darkness, hoping that my fingertips would strike the cool metal of the door, or the hard concrete of the steps.
They didn’t.
Instead, they came into contact with something infinitely scarier.
Something that made my heart seize in my chest and my lungs constrict with a sudden loss of air.Something that froze the blood to ice in my veins.
Because that thing my fingers had grazed?
It was a man’s chest.
Chapter Fourteen
Fight or Flight
I screamed.